Green gift shop to reopen in place of shuttered Redondo Beach scuba store

A grand opening is planned Saturday for the green-themed gift store and gallery Harmony Works, which is replacing the Sea D Sea diving shop that operated for 44 years in Redondo Beach’s Riviera Village.

Longtime owner Barry Friedman closed his scuba store at 1911 S. Catalina Ave. last month. Before he opened the business in 1969, Friedman said the same space housed two other diving stores. One was owned by the late Mel Fisher, the treasure-hunter who won fame in the 1970s and 1980s by discovering underwater riches from sunken Spanish galleons.

Harmony Works was also a mainstay in the village for nearly 20 years until it recently lost its lease a couple of blocks away.

“We are thrilled to be able to stay in the village since our roots go so deep in this small community,” said Royce Morales, who co-owns the shop with her husband, Michael.

The couple worked to create a gallery-like setting for their handcrafted, one-of-a-kind, often locally made merchandise.

“The dive shop was set up, well, like a dive shop,” said Michael Morales, who guided all of the construction himself. “We had to literally strip it bare and start from scratch, which was quite a challenge.”